Archive for the ‘master class’ Tag

Progress report: In two weeks, I have a net gain of three thousand words (which includes rewrites, expansions, and cutting material that is now redundant or no longer part of the story at all). I’m getting there, slowly but surely. I have to get it done by the end of October, because…

I’ve also started plotting work on my “NaNo” book; the story I will be working on in November, as part of National Novel Writing Month (fondly known as NaNoWriMo, or NaNo for the truly lazy). This is going to be something completely different: a historical romance about a duke who isn’t quite a duke and a ruined baron’s daughter who isn’t really ruined.

I never thought I would try to write a historical romance, but the characters popped into my head and wouldn’t go away, so here we are, LOL.

One other thing —

For writers who publish independently: I attended a workshop called the Indie Unconference October 12-13. It was mostly about marketing, but there were also discussions about the latest developments in wide vs. Kindle Unlimited (Amazon exclusive), and the best way to do print-on-demand now that Createspace is no more (may it rest in peace).

Like this:

I’m the president of the Popular Fiction Association of Idaho, Inc., which almost sounds impressive until you find out that it’s a teeny, tiny non-profit corporation that was created in 2004 for a half-dozen people who wanted to put on a mystery literature conference, specifically, Murder in the Grove, in Boise, Idaho.

Honestly, planning and executing a conference (complete with 25+ speakers, industry professionals, a massive group booksigning, a manuscript contest and a day-long master class) is a lot of work for 6-8 people. We didn’t do a full conference this year, just two days of master class with kick-ass teachers, Bob Mayer and Margie Lawson.

The master class weekend concluded yesterday and I’m waiting another day before I start going through the feedback forms, because I thought the teachers were wonderful, the information was incredibly useful and the organizers (the people I work with, not me) dedicated, professional and amazing.

And the classes — imagine your brain as an IBM PC. No, not a generic PC, the ORIGINAL PC. Now imagine a T1 line connected to said brain. It was kind of like that. Lots of information. Good information. Delivered via firehose. I’m pretty sure most of the students will be digesting it for days, if not weeks.

Both Bob (http://www.bobmayer.org) and Margie Lawson (www.margielawson.com) teach more advanced classes both in-person and online. Bob has instructional books published (his Novel Writer’s Toolkit is technically out of print, but he has copies available through his website), while Margie offers her work as lecture packets through her website. I wish she would publish them as books, but that’s because I’m lazy and I don’t want to go to the trouble of binding them myself.